\u201cI mean, that\u2019s good, isn\u2019t it?\u201d Tom says, now that he\u2019s human. \u201cHumanity can be my most . . . fabulous . . . adventure . . .\u201d<\/p>\n
Linus, who isn\u2019t, straightens. Then he looks around.<\/p>\n
Tom clutches at his sleeve.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t fight him, Linus,\u201d Tom says. \u201cHe\u2019ll devour you. He\u2019ll destroy you. You don\u2019t understand. You\u2019re not good enou \u2014 evil enou \u2014 you\u2019re not good enough.<\/i> He\u2019d win.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n
Linus sets his jaw.<\/p>\n
Then an uneasy memory fills him. He looks at the walls around him. He looks at the floor. He remembers a childhood fear.<\/p>\n
He rests his hand for a moment on a pristine wall.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know you, monster,\u201d he says. He is distracted. He is ignoring Tom. He is walking on an ethereal, exalted mental plane that only an antichrist, thinking about the cleaning man, can walk. (You shouldn\u2019t walk on this plane, by the way. It\u2019s poorly balanced. You might fall off!)<\/p>\n
\u201cI know<\/i> you,\u201d he repeats. \u201cI remember.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n
He looks around. His eyes burn.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t get to do this to him and just walk away, Mr. \u2014 Mr. \u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
Linus has no idea what his enemy\u2019s name is.<\/p>\n
He spits out: \u201cMr. Clean.<\/i>\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cI mean, that\u2019s good, isn\u2019t it?\u201d Tom says, now that he\u2019s human. \u201cHumanity can be my most . . . fabulous . . . adventure . . .\u201d Linus, who isn\u2019t, straightens. Then he looks around. Tom clutches at his sleeve. \u201cYou can\u2019t fight him, Linus,\u201d Tom says. \u201cHe\u2019ll devour you. He\u2019ll destroy you. You […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1126,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"series":[5],"class_list":["post-4246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stomping-the-world-round-chapter-5","series-stwr"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/Icon_PBJ.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4246"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4246\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6301,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4246\/revisions\/6301"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4246"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fseries&post=4246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}